


Break Your Promises

by brahe



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s09e01 The Magician's Nephew, Episode: s09e02 The Witch's Familiar, Episode: s09e10 Face the Raven, Introspection, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5447144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short fics based on quotes from series nine that end up being lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. don't you worry, old man; i'm not going anywhere

**Author's Note:**

> ah angst i love suffering. series nine literally ruined my life and i'd like to share my pain with you

_"Don't you worry, old man, I'm not going anywhere."_

He hears her promise echoing in his head as he watches her body fall to the ground. He wants to run to her, catch her as she falls, but he knows it's too late. Her voice whispers to him, again and again, promises on loop - promises that are now as empty as he feels.

He knows she wanted to stay forever; they almost always do. This time, he found himself slipping, losing his hold on his resolve to never submit anyone else to the kind of eternity he lives. It would have been so easy... He could have given her the repair kit and never have to go through the heartbreak of yet another loss. He remembers looking up at her with the patch in his hand, before reality came crashing in, reminding him of his oath that no one else would suffer the forever that he has, not even for his own sake.

It's still a punch to the gut, though. They always tell him they're not going to leave. Whether as a comfort to him or to themselves, he'll never know. He wonders, though, if they forget their own mortality when they promise him. Was it so easy to forget that one day death would claim them, just as it has every human before? It's one aspect of human nature he doubts he'll ever understand.

And this time it's not quite the same. He can't calm himself at night with the knowledge that she's safe in the universe somewhere. She didn't leave, she didn't forget - she's dead and gone and no matter what he does he can never see her again. Maybe that's what makes the words hurt the most.

 


	2. i'm the doctor, and i save people

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! there's more suffering to be had.

He'd found himself again, reinventing himself in the image of what he meant to be all along. He called himself the Doctor for a reason, and he'd finally, _finally_ started doing it right.

 

Except, in the one moment it really counted, he failed. He saved people, that's what he did, only this time he couldn't. The one person he doubted he could live without and he left her slip through his fingers and fall to the ground. What good was it to say that he saved people if he couldn't save her?

He knows she wouldn't blame him, doesn't blame him, but he can't keep the poisonous thoughts at bay now that he sits alone in his box. He sleeps less, his dreams twisting his impossible girl into a viscous nightmare.

 _"How could you let me die?"_ she asks in his dream and he shakes his head as the tears fall and he wants to tell her that he tried, that he wanted nothing more than to keep her safe. The words get stuck in his throat and he wakes up with wet cheeks and an aching heart.

 

And so he doesn't sleep, doesn't take care of himself. She was his carer, after all, in so many more ways than one. He forgets the man he'd fixed himself to be, forgets to do what he promised he'd to do.

It seems the one thing he can't get rid of is his habit of lying.


End file.
